"The Passion of the thinker is to think what cannot be thought" - Soren Kierkegaard

I. Kierkegaard

A. Keen's Opinion - Kierkegaard has had more impact on theology in the last 100 years than anyone else

B. It is
hard to categorize who he is

1. Philosophy

2. Theology

3. Psychology

4. Literature

C. He is
difficult, mainly because he thinks backwards

D. He was
convinced that the modern church had lost its way and was no where near the New
Testament church

1. It
was his calling in life to make clear what it means to become a Christian

2. His
home (Copenhagen) was much like APU, people think they are Christians simply
because they are here

E. Philosophical
Fragments

1. Written
as a critique of Hegel

2. However,
he love Socrates

3. At
certain points Socrates agrees with Hegel, so he is forced to critique both

4. Written
in a series of thought, as apposed to a logical fragments

F. Passion - Truth and subjectivity is concerned about a passionate life

G. Existence - Lots of things are alive, but it is quite harder to exist

1. lit. means "to stand out"

a. Ex - to

b. Sistere - stand out

2. The
only way to stand out (exist) is to live passionately and by faith

H. The
acceptance of his message

1. People
were glad once he died, his brother apologized for his life

2. After
World War I, people started to realize the value in what he was saying

II. Theology

A. Theology
is to think God the Father who is unspeakable transcendent, holy

1. Father,
who are in heaven

a. Heaven
is similar to the world sky

b. Sky
was inaccessible to the them at the time

c. It
becomes a metaphor of that which is inaccessible

2. Hallowed be your name - may your name be holy

a. May my words become (when "naming God") something in which they cannot become

B. Theology
is to think God the Son who is unspeakably debased, humiliated

C. Theology
is to think God the Holy Spirit who is the interplay that combines the two

III. Wesleyan
Quadrilateral Development

A. Tradition - 1st - 15th century

1. Anything past on to them, that had its origin in some sense in "that guy" (Jesus) became tradition

2. Quite
an ambiguous term and concept

3. People were not worried about "canonizing" the tradition until people were using traditions against itself

4. Power
groups eventually sprang up and began to define the tradition

a. It
became a tool of enforcement, of crowd control

b. It
became a method of drawing boundary lines between who is in and out

5. In
addition to that, tradition swelled larger and larger as years went on

B. Scripture - 16th century (Europe)

1. More
and more people began to have trouble with what they were told tradition was,
and were not sure these ideas were to be affirmed

2. People
began to notice that what was said in the Holy Scripture (which was accepted by
the tradition) was actually contradicting tradition

a. Scripture began to compete with tradition - although not everywhere

b. Movements began to emerge to protest this and asserted you can't trust tradition, but only the Bible - sola scriptura

c. It
is key to understand that there was tradition long before there was scripture

i. The new testament itself took a while to come together as "scripture" and before that all it was, was tradition

ii. Athanasius
(367) wrote the first letter in which pronounced the acceptance of the
canonical books

a. This did not just come out of the blue, but rather what was "generally" accepted in the churches of the day

b. Athanasius
also accepted the Apocrypha

C. Reason - 18th Century (Europe)

1. Their
began to emerge the sense (and knowledge) of autonomy of the human mind and the
human-self

2. Spiritual
make up of the time

a. Most
people at this time, and the past, believed in God

b. It
was during this time, however, that many atheists stepped out of the closest,
and atheism became a public movement

c. Many
people felt we could pursue God through knowledge and logic, these were called
Deists

3. If
we can learn to exercise our minds, we can learn to control the world

4. Francis Bacon, "Knowledge is power"

5. Pointing
to contradictions

a. Protestants
loved to point out the contradictions between tradition and the Bible

b. Autonomous
supporters loved to point out the contradictions within scripture

6. Autonomous
supporters loved to show how Biblical stories correlated to other Ancient
societies

a. So
the question is raised: why should we trust the Bible as accurate, but yet,
discount the other societies legends

b. Because of the effectiveness of the arguments of the advocates of autonomy, by 1799, a progressive intellectual who wanted to say something profound about God had a very hard time appealing to tradition and scripture - especially if their audience were also progressive intellectuals

7. If you want to say something about God, stand on your argument itself, don't refer to tradition or a "book" (Bible)

a. Because of the value the Bible had in the past, they would say, "lets give it around of applause," but yet advocate that it is time to move on and look towards nature

b. Natural Theology emerged - Nature points to the elements of God

i. Lets
admit that what is created was created from a Being &

a. &that
is orderly and loves order

b. &that
is good

D. Experience - 18th Century

1. The
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

a. Author:
Immanuel Kant

b. Main
point: knowledge never reaches beyond
experience

i. Experience
= seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching

ii. You
cannot come up with knowledge of anything that is removed from experience

iii. This isn't a problem for most things of this world, because it is easy to experience them, but it does create a huge problem when
refereeing to knowledge of the Divine

c. Kant
maintained that you can no nothing about
God

i. He was not an atheist - just because you can't know God does not mean you can't believe in God

ii. He
was trying to limit knowledge to make room for faith

d. Kant
believed and act had moral worth only if it proceeds out of a will to do good

i. Belief
in God will emerge from this mindset

ii. A
serous life interested to do good will postulate three things

a. Human
autonomy

1. Freedom
to do my duty

2. "I ought" implies "I can"

b. There
must be immortality so that the inequities of this life can be rectified

c. If
you are committed to an ethical life, you will maintain that there is a God who
is lawgiver and judge

iii. None of this will "prove" God exists, but yet rather indicates that an ethical life will if nothing else produce a belief in God

2. On Religion Speeches to It's Culture Despisers (1799)

a. Author:
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (Shl-eye-er-mah-ker)

i. He
was a Pastor of a Reformed Congregation in Berlin

ii. Professor
of Theology at the University of Berlin

iii. Sometimes
called the father of modern theology

iv. He was
a romantic (as in romanticism)

a. Arose
in Germany in reaction against the 18th century enlightenment

b. Preferred
simplicity; found technology to be a threat to a genuine mind

c. Preferred youth to "wisdom of age"

b. Main
point: The human being has three basic facilities

i. Reason

a. The
ability to know things

b. Gives
rise to metaphysics

ii. Will

a. The
ability to do things

b. Gives
rise to ethics

iii. Feeling

a. The
ability to experience things

b. Gives
rise to religion

c. Conclusion

i. In
order to be a well-rounded human being there is a necessity to be religious

ii. What
is most primal about us is the feeling of absolute dependence

IV. 19th
century

A. Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (d. 1831)

1. He
was kind of the 19th century "all-star" philosopher - he was suppose to be the philosopher that put an end to all future philosophers

2. Wraps the whole history of the universe is wrapped up in God - He is the creator, sustainer, and judge

3. Belief

a. God
is eternal, timelessness

i. Thinking
of God as eternal, self-sufficient, and alone is quite an empty concept

ii. In order for God to become full and rich He has to deal with something other than God - you become more real with the more struggles you go through